As Ryan Wilson continues his bike tour south from Colombia to Chile, he crosses a remote stretch of Bolivia’s infamous altiplano.  Follow along as Ryan takes on this harsh yet beautiful environment through volcanic landscapes and otherworldly salt flats.

The volcano-dotted altiplano which spans from southern Peru, across Bolivia and Chile is one of the most unique places in the world that exists to ride a bike.  The distances are long, signs of civilization are sparse, the wind is relentless, the air is thin, and if you stray from the main highways, the roads can be very unforgiving.  No shortage of touring cyclists have sworn this place off after just a few days on its sandy washboard roads.

During my first trip across this zone back in 2017, I was immediately hooked by its otherworldly landscapes, but I can’t lie, the memories of being sand-blasted by a headwind while slogging across bone-rattling tracks back in those days still lingered in the depths of my mind.  Still, with so much time in recent months scaling sheer vertical mountain passes on my way south from Colombia down through Ecuador and Peru, the excitement for a change of scenery outweighed any lingering doubts.

Lines in the Sand

Starting from the Peruvian border in northern Bolivia I had two goals in mind. I wanted to eventually reach the big famous Bolivian salt flats in the south that so thoroughly melted my brain back in 2017, but I also wanted to take a completely different route to get there.  That just meant connecting a few dots across 500 kilometers of Bolivian desierto. Easy, right?

Thankfully I had a web of tracks already mapped out from my time planning routes down here on my first visit, and one of the alternates fit that criteria perfectly.  It was only a matter of doing a bit of map scouring to plot out potential re-supply points.

The easy days of carrying a few liters of water and filling from a stream whenever it was convenient were over.   Here I’d need closer to 8-10 liters over certain stretches, which meant dusting off the old water bladders that are crammed into the depths of my frame bag for months at a time.

On the Road

From the border town of Desaguadero, I ate some roadside trucha frita (fried trout) and jumped on a fast paved road with the idea to knock out the first 180 kilometers or so in two days.  One might think fish from a Bolivian street vendor is an unwise decision for the first day of a 600km stretch, but hey, sometimes gotta live dangerously and that trucha was not just the first meal I had in Bolivia but also the best.  All downhill from here!

Crossing Río Mauri

My route followed an old set of train tracks out into the middle of the altiplano before I said goodbye to the speed of the pavement just a handful of kilometers from the dusty village of Calacota.  The town was empty when I rolled in at 3 pm, save for one woman knitting by the river just outside of town.  Everyone else must be out tending to their sheep and alpaca herds still.

Directly next to the woman knitting was an old footbridge that was hardly as wide as my fully loaded bike and stretched for half a kilometer to the other side of the river.  On the map, that bridge was my only way across Río Mauri, to meet up with the road that would continue south on the other side.

I pushed my bike up to the end of the on-ramp.  The bridge creaked and groaned as I inched my way across, trying not to clip my panniers on the support beams, which barely allowed for an inch of breathing room.  I stepped across gaps in the bridge where wooden planks had broken away and fallen into the river.

2/3rds of the way across, I stopped for a moment and finally broke my concentration on what was right in front of me.  I took a breath and looked up the river for the first time and noticed what looked like a big brand new concrete bridge made for vehicles in the distance that just so happens to be missing from my map. Oops!

I made it to the end of the bridge, rumbled down the cattle-grate style off-ramp, and cut across an open field scattered with alpacas toward my road of choice.

The sun was low and the wind was calm.  This was no small miracle considering I was riding straight into the direction where the infamous Bolivian wind tends to come from, so I took the opportunity to cover every bit of ground that I could while there was still some light left, opting to set up my tent just after it got dark.

I Think I’m Being Followed

In the morning I continued along this remote stretch of road for almost the full day before I ran into a single person.  I was crawling up one of the steeper pitches of the route when I heard a motorcycle approaching from behind me.  I pedaled on and moved to the edge of the road, waiting for them to pass me, but they stayed back, keeping a steady distance.

This goes on for 30-40 seconds before it starts to feel a little suspect, so I stop and look behind me.  The motorcycle stopped too, leaving a distance between us, and turned off their engine.  The person riding it had a mask pulled up over their face, so I could only see that they were looking straight at me.

I threw up a big wave and shouted out “Hola!” down the road toward them to break the awkward moment.

They stood motionless for a few seconds before turning on the motorcycle again and making their way up to me.

The rider stared for a few seconds before pulling down his mask and I realized it was just a kid traveling across this super remote stretch of altiplano by himself on a motorcycle.

He wasn’t very talkative and mostly only responded to yes or no questions, but I gathered that his family lives out here in the sticks with their heard of alpacas and he makes this journey a couple of times per week to go to school in one of the bigger villages.  It takes him a few hours to make the trip every time.  I tried to think about what I was doing when I was a kid his age.  I certainly wasn’t crossing the Bolivian Altiplano by myself!

I eventually told him that I was going to continue riding and jumped back on my bike.  That’s when I assumed he would ride off past me, but he still held back.  I slowly made my way up the 8% climb, and he was once again tailing me from a distance at under 10km/h.  This went on for another 30 minutes until I got to the top of the climb, where he continued to tail me down the descent.

Another hour went by before I passed a crossroad and saw a few buildings scattered in the distance.  I looked back and he had stopped once again.  I pointed toward the houses and then back to him and asked if that was where he was going.  He waved and yelled “Ciao!” and we went our separate ways.

A Familiar (Mountain) Face

While I’d seen glimpses of Nevado Sajama, Bolivia’s tallest mountain, in the distance a few other times in the previous days, it was only now starting to dominate the horizon.  The way Sajama prominently stands out from the relatively flat altiplano that surrounds it allows it to be seen for hundreds of kilometers in almost any direction and makes it one of the most impressive sights in all of Bolivia.

As I approached its lower slopes, the evening thunderstorms had begun to pick up steam.  Lightning peppered the nearby volcanic peaks and a thick patch of rain could be seen hammering the landscape just a couple of kilometers away.  Somehow I managed to stay mostly dry and only caught a few stray hail blasts as I pedaled as furiously as I could to make it to a nearby village to stay for the night.

While I had a good stretch of weather to start my time in Bolivia, these temperamental shoulder season storms were becoming a pattern that I had to plan for.  If there’s one place that you don’t want to get caught out in an electrical storm, it’s the Altiplano, where you’re completely exposed and there’s often nowhere to hide.

Looking at the forecast, I knew I had to get strategic.  I waited out two days of sketchy weather in Sajama village and found a window of 2.5 days to cover the next 290 kilometers.  It would be a big push with a fully loaded down setup on these unforgiving roads, but this would be just enough to get me past the Salar de Coipasa before the next big weather system comes through.  That would be key since that particular salt flat is infamous for being a sloppy mess after a storm.

Chullpa Pukara

I continued south along the edge of Bolivia’s western border with Chile, following a series of sandy tracks past lakes filled with flamingos and detoured to a series of ancient Chullpas.  These are traditional funerary towers used by the Aymaran people who inhabit much of the surrounding regions.

With a peek inside of the colorful tombs you can still find human skeletons inside, along with an offering of holy coca leaves from the rare visitors that make their way to this remote site.

I pushed on to make my kilometers of the day and was rewarded with one of the best views of Nevado Sajama of the whole trip from around 80km away, and decided to stay there for the night.  The view didn’t come for free though, as it cost me a night of my tent getting bombarded by a relentless westerly wind that didn’t ease off until shortly before sunrise.   Still, it was worth it!

The following day would be one of the biggest that I’ve done in my time touring.  I woke up early and on a mission, looked at the map, and dropped a pin on Coipasa village, which sits on an island in the middle of the salt flat.  120km it said, with a grand total of roughly 1km of that being paved, and the rest being a potpourri of Bolivian back roads that range from reasonably speedy hard-packed dirt to pushing through deep sand.

If I did make it to the village, it would give me a chance to cross the rest of the salt flat early the following morning and easily beat that big storm front that was coming in, so it seemed the right thing to aim for.

Over the Salt, Into the Night

It took the whole day to arrive at the edge of the first part of the salar (salt flat).  Signs were already there that heavy rains had taken their toll in recent days.  The dirt/salt mixed edge of the salar was more of a slick mud that at times was difficult to even stand up on without slipping to the ground.  Riding, at times, was impossible.

The sun was already on the horizon, and I started to think that maybe this was a bad idea.  Turning back wasn’t really an option though, and I didn’t have enough water on me to make my way to the edge of the salar and camp for the night, so I had no choice but to keep moving.

Eventually, I got past the muddiest section and was able to ride again, spraying thick wet salt all over myself and my bike.  More than an hour past dark I finally arrived in the sparsely illuminated Coipasa village and grabbed a hotel room before running to the one chicken shop in town that was still open for some cold pollo and soggy papas fritas.  This meal would have been borderline inedible in most situations but it was somehow delicious as I sat there covered in salt from head to toe.  The hard part was over.

The lady cooking up Coipasa’s finest chicken and fries gave me some welcome news after she noticed my salt-crusted clothes and I told her about the conditions I dealt with on the northern end of the salt flat.  To my surprise, she said the southern half was mostly dry.  A big storm came through the previous day and soaked that northern part, but spared the rest, so I should be cruising the next day.

Coipasa Crossing

I woke up the next morning, said goodbye to Coipasa, and pedaled back onto the salty expanse.  The rumors were true that the conditions were a lot better, though that didn’t stop a thick crust of salt from developing all over my bike again.  I had to chisel off the salt just to get at my water bottles.

Before long, I made it to the other side and worked my way across the edge of the salar toward the small village of Llica, which is in one of the most unique geographical locations for a town that I’ve ever been to, sandwiched on a strip of land between two giant salt flats.  Locals even take a bus in and out of town that goes directly across 150km of salt flat when conditions allow.

Llica would turn into my home base for a couple of days as the local police advised me not to cross the damp salar until there was a safe gap in the weather.  I was pretty cooked from the three tough days on the bike as it was, so I was more than happy to take it easy and prepare for a 2-day crossing of Salar de Uyuni.

Stay tuned here to follow my route south as I ride from Colombia to Santiago de Chile, and check out some of the previous installments below.

See the Prospector frame he’s touring on and more at Tumbleweed Bikes.